NYLON - January 2009 - (Page 120) the pickers hard at work. monsieur mul, a jasmine vine in hand, explaining the harvest process. bins of jasmine flowers being overlooked by the factory’s resident, er, nose. FIELD OF DREAMS There is a bottle of Chanel No. 5 sold every 30 seconds. When it emerged in 1921, there was absolutely nothing like it: No. 5 was an anomaly in a sea of stuffy floral scents. Mademoiselle Chanel wanted “a women’s fragrance that smells like women,” and she got it, thanks to perfumer Ernest Beaux. Beaux designed No. 5 to be as complex—it used large quantities of aldehydes (synthetic substances) in combination with florals for the very first time—and unique as the women who dared to wear it. What has helped No. 5 remain the best-selling fragrance in the world since the ’20s is the fact that it is comprised of only the most extraordinary raw materials (of the 80 ingredients, jasmine is one of the most prominent). In 1987, to maintain the integrity of No. 5, Chanel decided to sign an exclusive contract with the premiere producer of jasmine in Grasse, France, the Mul family, ensuring the continual availability and quality of the flower extract that comprises its famous scent’s heart. (The company did the same thing with the rare Centifolia rose a few years later.) So when Chanel asked if I would be interested in taking a trip to Grasse—the world’s center of perfume production—to witness the harvesting of the jasmine from their proprietary fields, it didn’t CHANEL NO. 5 IS THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS FRAGRANCE, SO IT’S NO SURPRISE THAT THE MATERIALS USED IN ITS CREATION ARE TRULY EXCEPTIONAL. BY FIORELLA VALDESOLO take me long to say oui! Upon arriving at the aptly-named Chanel Farm, I was immediately struck by its simplicity. Daydreaming on the plane ride over, I pictured trees with dangling, interlocking “C”s instead of fruit, and futuristic machines made of shiny, quilted metal gathering the flowers. But the only evidence that this rustic factory nestled in the arid plains of Southern France belongs to Chanel is a row of fluorescent Wellies embossed with that familiar logo lined up outside the factory entrance, waiting to be used to trudge out to the fields. As I approach and catch a whiff of the air—which is saturated with a lush, sensual aroma of jasmine—there is no doubt that I am in Chanel territory. The crop (total yearly output: 20 tons) is harvested between July and October, entirely by hand, because the manner in which each flower must be gently plucked from its stem cannot be achieved with machines. When we arrive in the morning hours for a tour with Joseph Mul, the rows of delicate white jasmine bushes are being tended to by pickers, their hands moving quickly and methodically from bloom to bloom, until all that remains are bare green bushes— a tin of finished jasmine concrete. the next morning, a new set of white buds will have returned. The pickers start the arduous task at 6 a.m.; by noon their baskets are being weighed, and their tallies logged in a leather-bound book by Mul—their pay is determined by how much they pick. Next, the jasmine leaves are sent to the factory building to be processed— which must occur within six hours of picking, otherwise they oxidize and lose their potency. The next phase is the extraction of the jasmine concrete. The batches of delicate blooms arrive and are placed on a conveyor belt, then dumped and arranged into five layers in the extractor machine, which will execute the process by submerging them in a solvent bath. There are 200 kilos of flowers loaded in each machine every day, which will yield only 500 grams of concentrated fragrance—ten kilos of concrete require nearly 7,000 hours of picking. After a few hours the crushed jasmine is treated with steaming water to get rid of the solvent, and the flower’s fragrant juice is squeezed out—since Chanel tries to be sustainable, the used-up flowers become compost in the fields. Finally the distillation of the concrete happens in a bubbling Charlie and the Chocolate Factory–style vat filled with what looks like hot butter. loading the extraction machine. There is a bit of that carefully cultivated, distinctly Chanel jasmine in each bottle of No. 5, (and the new Eau Premiere). After witnessing the entire process, from field to factory, it’s clear why this famous fragrance is considered a work of art. From the juice to the bottle—the perfume extract is still stamped and sealed using the ancient baudruchage method, in which a membrane goes over the neck and then is tied with black yarn—No. 5 is composed as lovingly and fastidiously today as it was in the ’20s. So before I turn in that night, I take a cue from Marilyn—when asked once what she wore to bed, she simply replied, “a few drops of No. 5”— dab some behind my ears, and fall asleep dreaming of jasmine. me getting a whiff, and yes, those are Chanel Wellies I’m wearing. 120 beauty news photos by fiorella valdesolo
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